Monday, March 2, 2015

Barbie's Big Comeback

Recently an article appeared in Fortune magazine reporting "Barbie's Comeback Plan". Barbie sales have dropped for the last three years. Mattel is attempting to improve Barbie's declining popularity by introducing more diversity, a super hero line, (That isn't 'Barbie in Princess Power' is it? Because that isn't that super hero-y.) and a talking Barbie called Hello Barbie. Hello Barbie can 'improve her conversation over time', by sort of learning more things to ask or say.

According to the article the coming year will bring a total of 78 new
Barbie dolls. (What happened to the days when there were a couple of
dolls and you just bought new clothes for them?!) Included will be 8 different skin tones and 14 different hair styles. Fortune also reports that for the 'first time' Barbie will have bendable ankles so she can wear flats. I'm a little confused, or maybe Fortune is. Barbie has had bendable, or at least jointed, ankles before, and has worn flats.
If you want to read the full article it can be found Here .

8 comments:

I don't think she's had jointed ankles and been able to wear flats at the same time? The only jointed ankles Barbie I can think of is that ballerina and you can't change her shoes. And when Barbies have had the foot design to wear flats, they typically can't wear heels too, so I'm assuming this would be a design to enable her to transition? Idk.

Well, you may be right Em. I was thinking Gymnast Barbie had jointed ankles, but maybe not. (Gymnast Stacie and friends did though. Maybe that's what I was thinking of.) The transition idea sounds like a possibility.

I really like the idea of articulated ankles however i think, that only few of dolls will get it. I really don't like the fact that the newest fashionistas have almost no ariculation. 78 doll is a lot, and i think that it isn't a way to solve the problem.I agree with you, that a few doll friends would be enough. They should invest more in quality (Did you see neck joints?, They look horrible especially in fashionistas line). Diverisity of clothes, shoes and other accessories would be nice:)

Maybe the '78' refers to the whole Barbie line, including friends. I suppose they couldn't compete in today's market if they only made one or two Barbie's a year, but that just brings us back to our whole wasteful society again. Do we really need that many choices? So much waste is produced, and nobody appreciates things any more because things are so replaceable. As for the articulation,yes! What happened to the Fashionistas? They used to be the most articulated Barbies around. Even the guys had articulated elbows, knees, and wrists. Now the guys have only the basic articulation, and the girls aren't much better. Articulation is becoming something buyers almost demand. Mattel is just stabbing themselves in the back doing away with it. If they're worried about their sales, maybe they should consider that fact.